Plastic Grocery Bags—The Beginning.
The plastic grocery bag, also known as a gusseted t-shirt bag, was first introduced 50 years ago. It became pervasive in supermarkets throughout the U.S. in the late 1970's. Today approximately 40,000 supermarkets utilize $1.3 billion worth of plastic grocery bags. Plastic grocery bags became an indispensable supply item for supermarket chains because they are so inexpensive relative to the main alternative—paper bags. Specifically, a plastic grocery bag is about ⅙th the cost of a paper bag. Because of this cost disparity the plastic grocery bag is now 85% of a supermarket's bag cost and paper bags, once the bag of choice, are now only 15%.
The cost disparity and resultant dominance in supermarket use of plastic grocery bags is important as background because it speaks to the philosophical view of supermarkets during the past few decades—“that even if 3 or 4 plastic grocery bags are used where previously one paper bag was used it is still less expensive than what we've been spending on paper bags”.
Plastic Grocery Bag Issues—1970's.
Coinciding with this philosophy was the realization that plastic grocery bags were relatively weak especially along the bottom seal which could lead to heavy items falling through or sharp items ripping the bags. The consequence of such product failures were refunds to shoppers and general shopper dissatisfaction. The solution that evolved has been to significantly under fill a plastic grocery bag or “double bag” items. Unfortunately over time this behavior on the part of supermarket baggers has been taken to an extreme well beyond the true limitations of plastic grocery bags. Studies show that on average less than 50% of available volume of a standard plastic t-shirt bag is being utilized and 10% of supermarket usage is for double bagging.
The physical nature of plastic grocery bags has been a continual issue over the decades but for significantly differing reasons. Early on after their introduction one of the primary issues was how do you open and keep open a plastic grocery bag so groceries can be put inside. Paper bags had historically just been placed on the check out counter and because they had a fixed shape could, once open, be easily loaded. Plastic grocery bags by contrast didn't have a fixed shape and the film would stick together during and after opening so they were difficult to load and thus inefficient in a commercial retail setting.
Another problem, at that time, resulting from plastic grocery bags' tendency to stick to together was getting the “next” bag for packing without grabbing multiple bags at the same time. This problem led to both wasting a lot of bags and slowing down the checkout process.
Early Plastic Grocery Bag Industry Innovations/Inventions.
Because of these two issues early inventions regarding plastic-t-shirt bags centered on ways to effectively and efficiently grab, open and keep open a single plastic grocery bag during packing. Thus the wire-arm bag racks and self-opening plastic grocery bags that are now ubiquitous in supermarkets world-wide came to be. These, now industry standard, products ensure that plastic grocery bags are efficiently dispensed one bag at-a-time, opened wide and kept opened during loading.
Plastic Grocery Bag Issues—2009/Today.
What wasn't foreseen during the early days of plastic grocery bags' widespread use is how their relatively weak structure and disposable nature would lead to the tremendous underutilization, waste and environmental issues that are evident today. The carbon footprint, single-use and underutilization of plastic grocery bags are seen as a major issues by environmental groups, municipalities and concerned citizens—all looking for ways to curb or eliminate their use. Cities such as San Francisco have enacted laws and/or bag use taxes to accomplish just such reduced plastic grocery bag use.
Towards this end, inventions/innovations regarding plastic grocery bags today are now focused on reducing their underutilization, waste and negative environmental impact. For example, in regards to increasing the utilization of plastic grocery bags inventions such as the reinforced bottom seal have been introduced. This particular invention allows a plastic grocery bag to be completely filled, thus holding as much as a paper bag or reusable bag, without the bottom seal breaking or the bag ripping. This could potentially lead to a significant drop in plastic grocery bags used and plastic introduced into the environment.
Why Plastic Grocery Bags Remain Underutilized.
A limiting factor in the better utilization of plastic grocery bags during the bagging process is that they don't adequately take on and sustain an erect rectangular shape using the industry standard wire-arm bag rack. Specifically, plastic grocery bags sag during loading and start to look full before they actually, are full and thus the bagger pre-maturely halts packing the current bag and moves on to a new bag.
While one bag at-a-time dispensing, opening and general packing of a plastic grocery bag is no longer an issue, as its been adequately addressed with past inventions adopted by the industry (such as self-opening bags and wide armed wire racks), this issue of optimal packing/filling of a plastic grocery bag has not been sufficiently addressed commercially. The national average, at supermarket chains, for grocery items in a plastic grocery bag, is 3.4 items per bag. This is less than half of what goes into a paper bag of equivalent size. Many major retailers are now pushing to get their average items per bag up. For example, in their most recent sustainability reports, Kroger and Wal-Mart cite the desire to increase item count to 5 and reduce bag waste by 33%, respectively.
Most efforts to reduce bag waste in a retail setting have centered on training baggers to put more in every bag such as Kroger's current Strive for Five program. While these programs generally have initial success the results are difficult to sustain because supermarkets have high turnover in the bagger position, which is predominantly comprised of part-time employees who are very often high-school or college students.
Accordingly, there has been a long-felt need, that has not yet been met, for a more natural, effective and sustainable method to achieve increased items per bag so as to reduce bag waste.